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> We now live in a country where someone who exposes war crimes can be sentenced to life even if not found guilty of aiding the enemy Why do people continue us

by mpyne 13y ago

> We now live in a country where someone who exposes war crimes can be sentenced to life even if not found guilty of aiding the enemy Why do people continue using the flawed argument that because someone does good thing X, that it necessarily excuses a multitude of bad things Y? If all he did was to leak war crimes and nothing else we'd be treating Pfc. Manning like we treated Pfc. Justin Watt (as a hero who uncovered horrific crimes [1]). But, that's not all he did, and so that's not how we treat him. There's a reason Snowden was so careful to note in his first interview how different his own behavior was from Manning's. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_killings#Cover_up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_killings#Cover_up

nutate 13y ago
And at the same time Snowden left the US, leaving him to answer to a whole other set of allegations.
killerpopiller 13y ago
What "bad things" did he do? Those cables showed a myriad of illegal or at least very questionable actions of the US-gov. It showed the US foreign policy as what it really is, a menace to none-US societies.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > What "bad things" did he do? He leaked classified diplomatic cables that, however interesting, did not reveal war crimes or really crimes of any sort. This isn't just a theoretical point: Would you allow the IT staff at your company to post "interesting" emails by management to your competitors, or the public at large? Even the very public organization I develop for still has private mailing lists.
  - bradleyland 13y ago
    While I agree with you to some degree that indiscriminate sharing of government information is not the same as whistleblowing, we should avoid any metaphors referencing corporations. Corporations cannot put you in jail for life; our government can. The government is held to a different standard, and rightly so. You work for a company, the government works for you.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      > Corporations cannot put you in jail for life; our government can. The government is held to a different standard, and rightly so. You work for a company, the government works for you. You speak about theoretical things but I have to say; corporations have been far more damaging to me personally than the governments here in America ever have. Even your example about jail, for instance, would require that I do something bad enough to warrant life imprisonment, that I get caught, that an investigation into my actions returns an indictment, that the case against me doesn't get thrown out on a technicality, that the prosecution then goes on to positively prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that I'm guilty, and then goes further to prove I'm such a danger to society that I should be removed for life. Oh, and that a judge agrees with the sentence, it never gets overturned on one of multiple layers of appeal, and that the prisons don't get so overcrowded that they have to release nice guys like me early. Now, if you're going to say that the government could imprison me by taking extralegal actions I would actually agree. But then the same applies to corporations and individuals in general. So while I agree that the government works for the people and should be held to that standard, I disagree that the government works for me or you personally, which is one of the reasons we allow governments to maintain information controls at all (because it's in the interest of society at large).

by mpyne 13y ago

nutate 13y ago

And at the same time Snowden left the US, leaving him to answer to a whole other set of allegations.

killerpopiller 13y ago

What "bad things" did he do? Those cables showed a myriad of illegal or at least very questionable actions of the US-gov. It showed the US foreign policy as what it really is, a menace to none-US societies.

mpyne 13y ago
> What "bad things" did he do? He leaked classified diplomatic cables that, however interesting, did not reveal war crimes or really crimes of any sort. This isn't just a theoretical point: Would you allow the IT staff at your company to post "interesting" emails by management to your competitors, or the public at large? Even the very public organization I develop for still has private mailing lists.
- bradleyland 13y ago
  While I agree with you to some degree that indiscriminate sharing of government information is not the same as whistleblowing, we should avoid any metaphors referencing corporations. Corporations cannot put you in jail for life; our government can. The government is held to a different standard, and rightly so. You work for a company, the government works for you.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    > Corporations cannot put you in jail for life; our government can. The government is held to a different standard, and rightly so. You work for a company, the government works for you. You speak about theoretical things but I have to say; corporations have been far more damaging to me personally than the governments here in America ever have. Even your example about jail, for instance, would require that I do something bad enough to warrant life imprisonment, that I get caught, that an investigation into my actions returns an indictment, that the case against me doesn't get thrown out on a technicality, that the prosecution then goes on to positively prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that I'm guilty, and then goes further to prove I'm such a danger to society that I should be removed for life. Oh, and that a judge agrees with the sentence, it never gets overturned on one of multiple layers of appeal, and that the prisons don't get so overcrowded that they have to release nice guys like me early. Now, if you're going to say that the government could imprison me by taking extralegal actions I would actually agree. But then the same applies to corporations and individuals in general. So while I agree that the government works for the people and should be held to that standard, I disagree that the government works for me or you personally, which is one of the reasons we allow governments to maintain information controls at all (because it's in the interest of society at large).